


Empty Space

by queenhawke



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenhawke/pseuds/queenhawke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It's strange, isn't it?” he blurted out, suddenly feeling the need to say something, get this out of his system.<br/>She glanced at him. “What is?”<br/>“Falling out of love.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Space

**Author's Note:**

> In which I aggressively write Library fix-its that fix nothing. Because that is all I can write, apparently.

She'd called him earlier that day, suggesting they'd meet for lunch. Have a chat, catch up on each other's lives, how does Paris sound? Well, he'd never say no to Paris. Spring of 1999, the new millenium just far enough for people not to be panicking about Y2K, but close enough for countless articles about what wonders the 21st century would hold. He fondly remembered his own experiences with the turn of the century. It had been... Los Angelos? San Fransisco? One of them, at least. Mostly he remembered Grace, and that mess with the Master, although it'd had been kind of a fun mess. There had been kissing, which was nice. And the new body. “The Oncoming Pretty”, she'd teased, when he'd shown her the pictures. “I'll have to visit him some time. And Grace, too.” He'd huffed and grumbled about changing timelines and _what do you mean, Grace too?_ And she would shoot him that infuriating smile he had loved so dearly.

A light, airy jingle sounded as he pushed open the door of the quaint little lunchroom. Hipsters weren't a thing yet, thank God, else it'd be packed. Instead there were only a couple of people, clearly locals, sipping from delicate tea cups and eating whatever the hell French people ate at lunch. Frog legs on baguettes, probably.

He spotted her quickly, hair obviously hard to miss, even behind the paper she was reading. The dark leather of the booth creaked as he sat down, but she didn't look up. A waitress swooped in on him, taking his order of tea (“No, nothing else, thank you. Wait, the tea does come with a biscuit, yes? Yes, of course.”) and silently gliding away again as only waitresses can. Only then did she put the paper down.

She looked the same as ever, hair wild and untameable, although he thought it was a slightly darker shade than the last time he saw her. A flowery sundress graced her curved figure, paired with a simple jacket against the slight chill outside. She would have blended in perfectly, were it not for the vortex manipulator that she had on her wrist. She always complained about how it was far too large and clunky for her liking, but it was really the only way to time travel without a proper time machine.

“ _Bonjour_.” Her voice still sounded the same, too. Rich and warm, somehow capable of making anything sound dirty.

He smiled. “ _Bonjour_ to you too. Nice place you picked.”

“Thanks, I found it a couple of weeks ago. Very charming, don't you think? Bit too French, maybe.”

“Hm. They don't serve scones.”

“A crime.”

“Honestly.”

“Diaries?”

“Naturally.”

He didn't carry a diary anymore, of course. Neither did she. There was no need, since there weren't really any spoilers left. They didn't meet that often, and when they did, nothing important or life-changing happened. Foreknowledge of what you had during a lunch or dinner in the future wasn't exactly dangerous.

But still the phrase stuck. And still they did their little ritual, even if it didn't matter that much anymore. It was nice though. Their little thing. A remnant of the past, of _their_ past.

“So,” she said, after taking a sip of her tea. “Last time I saw you was... I think Hong Kong, 2133? With the holographics strippers.”

“Yes, that was a mistake,” he mumbled, remembering the seedy bar she'd taken him to vividly.

“So we're in synch then? Again? This is what, the fifth time? That must be a record.”

“Our record's six, River.”

“Well,” she said, grinning, “close enough.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds, just looking at each other. The waitress came back with his tea (and biscuit!), smiling and nodding. He touched the cup gingerly – still too hot. River glanced out of the window at the people enjoying the spring weather outside. Both started talking at the same moment.

“Are you – “

“So how's –“

They laughed, a bit awkwardly.

“You go first,” she said.

“How have you been?”

“Fine, you?”

“Fine.”

Silence.

“Who are you travelling with now, then?” she asked.

“Oh, two very nice young people. Brother and sister. They're from Hermes, you know, the colony? Their parents died in a civil war, poor things. They're great, though. Very bright. Strong, optimistic. The boy gets a bit flirty, though.”

“Like you mind,” she said, smirking. He coughed, blushing a little.

“Well. I – well, no. He's quite – anyway,” he said, eager to change topic. “Still haven't regenerated, I see.”

“I'm not as careless with my body as you are.”

“I'm not careless, I've had this one for ten years now.”

“Ooh, ten, very impressive. A whole decade. Amazing.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Not a chance.”

Another silence, filled only with the murmer of the other people in the lunchroom. He took a gulp of the tea. Bad idea, still too hot. Don't these French people know how to make proper tea? Honestly. He glanced at River, who was reading the paper again. That's how these meetings usually went. They're both not great at smalltalk. Doesn't matter, they liked it this way. They don't have to say a lot. They just enjoyed being in each other's presence for an hour or two.

That being said, he does get restless quickly. He cleared his throat, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Are you still seeing... what's her name, Anna?”

“Hannah, and yes.”

“Hm, so they haven't thrown you out yet for dating a student?” He was fairly certain that student-teacher relationships were frowned upon even in the 51st century.

“She graduated last year, actually. So they can't really complain anymore.”

“Oh, that's good.”

“We bought a house together,” River said, looking out of the window, dreamily. “Really nice place too. Big. Very open plan.” She still didn't like small rooms much. Made her feel contained, even though Storm Cage was just a distant memory now. Some things linger.

She stirred her tea, slowly, clearly lost in thought. “I'm thinking of proposing.”

He smiled. “That's nice. Will I be invited to the wedding?”

She snorted at that, dreamy look on her face immediately gone and replaced with amusement. “Do you really think that's a good idea?”

“I'm your friend!”

“You're terrible at weddings.”

“We had some good ones!” he protested.

“What you and I consider good are two very different things.”

He pouted. “What about the one on Cethellis? That was a nice wedding.”

“A group of mutated harpies attacked us and ate the priest.”

“But _before_ that, it was nice.”

“ _Sweetie_ ,” she said (and the endearment still shot a small shiver up his spine, something which he knew would never go away), “I just don't think it's a very good idea to invite my ex-husband to my wedding. It'll be weird.”

He frowned. “You don't have to tell anyone I'm your ex-husband. I could just be a friend. Which I am –”

“Doctor, I – I just... I'd rather you weren't there,” she sighed. An uncomfortable silence settled. He'd thought maybe – but he supposed you could never really leave the past behind, no matter how hard you tried. They could be friends, but they would also always be exes. He fumbled with his biscuit. It looked rather dry and unappetizing. Maybe he should have gotten a frog baguette.

“It's strange, isn't it?” he blurted out, suddenly feeling the need to say something, get this out of his system. It's been in his system for a while now. Not very good, having things in your system. It gets all clogged up and starts festering and well – he just needed to say it.

She glanced at him. “What is?”

“Falling out of love.”

She frowned. “People do it all the time. They break up, get divorces...”

“Yes, but that's... different. Different from what happened with us. Break-ups and divorces... they're fast, ugly usually. They hurt. We never divorced, we just... stopped being husband and wife somewhere along the way.”

“We had a break-up of sorts...” River said slowly, still looking a bit confused.

“We'd been spending less and less time together and then one day we just agreed we weren't in love anymore. That's not so much a break-up as a... a slowly fade away... up.”

“Right.” River scratched her head. “Still not entirely sure what you're trying to say.”

“I'm not trying to say anything, I'm just... making an observation,” he huffed. “I dunno, it's just...” He sighed.

“After the Library, I thought we'd be together forever.”

“So did I,” River said softly. She reached out for him, taking his hand in hers. “Of course we thought that. But it just didn't work out. These things happen.”

“But why not? We were – we were _perfect_. You and me. Time and space, remember? Hell, I managed to convince the Council to give you more regenerations. We could have had forever. We should have. And yet – and yet here we are, _friends._ It just... I feel like I messed up, like I wasted this golden opportunity to have a happy life with someone.”

“Sweetie...” Her thumb brushed gently against his hand, and he momentarily got distracted by a memory of when they were younger, when they were together, and how she'd tease him about how pale he always was. Now her skin was the one looking pale in comparison to him. He almost wanted to pull away, as if this moment would taint the memory, but he managed to hold it together.

“I don't think... in hindsight, it was never going to be forever for us.” Her voice was barely audible over the murmur of the lunchroom. “When were we ever the kind of people to be tied down?”

“I never felt tied down by you –”

“ _I know_ , neither did I, but look at the lives we live. Think about all the people you've traveled with. You could easily find someone from Gallifrey, find someone with your lifespan, yet you still go for the humans. Even Romana knew you two couldn't stay together. And me... well, I never did travel with you all the time. There was a reason for that. Remember that time I stayed with you for two months?”

“You nearly blew up a planet because you got so irritated with me.”

“Well, exactly.”

“Yet you've bought a house with Hannah.”

River rolled her eyes. “Just because I have a house doesn't mean I'm staying there all the time. I've got digs to do, artifacts to hunt down. Banks to rob,” she added the last part under her breath. He nearly choked on his tea.

“ _Banks to rob?_ ”

“It was an expensive house! I don't earn _that_ much from being a professor.” She laughed that low laugh of hers, and the air got a bit lighter again.

“Still,” he said, “don't you ever... wish it had gone differently?”

“Nah,” she shrugged, “what would be the point of that? What happened, happened. I mean, you can't mourn what you lost forever, or let it keep you from living. I know...” A look of sadness passed over her features, briefly, but she hid it, as she always did. “I know Hannah will die before me, but... I'm not gonna pass on beautiful things just because they don't last forever. And life's good _now._ We're still friends, I've got a girlfriend I love very much, an exciting job... We're happy, that's what counts, right? And we'll always have the memories of our time together.”

His teacup was empty, he realised. He _felt_ empty. Not sad, mind you, just... A bit hollow. The lunchroom was starting to clear out. Outside, on the sunny streets of Paris, people were milling about. Chatting, laughing, _living_. He felt disconnected from them, from the world. Like he was trapped in a bubble, seperate from reality. He could see everyone else, could see her, but they were moving around him and he was stuck, still as stone. A small part of him told him he should be worried by this, but he wasn't. He wasn't feeling anything. Not that he wasn't trying to feel something. The emptiness in him did a desperate attempt to fill itself. It pulled and tugged and reminded him of his friends, his dear companions, the siblings, the jokes and laughs and adventures and love they shared. And his companions before that, all those smiling/crying/angry faces and the hand-holding and running and flirting and screaming and somehow it all blurred together and all he saw was River. All the memories and could-have-beens and should-have-beens and regrets and somewhere in there had once been love, but now it was dull and grey and he wasn't sure if he'd ever be capable of feeling anything stronger than fondness. Maybe he'd never moved on from her. Maybe he'd just cut off the part that loved her.

He was getting too old.

“Doctor?”

He looked up, and her voice seemed to pull him back from whatever cold dimension he'd been trapped in.

“You _are_ happy, aren't you?” she asked, worried look on her face.

“Of course.”

If she noticed that his smile never reached his eyes, she didn't mention it.

 


End file.
